Hoagie Day – May 5

When you think May 5th, you are likely thinking Cinco de Mayo. But, something else is going on that day and if you’re travelling through Philadelphia you won’t miss it. May 5th is World Hoagie day.

For those of you who don’t know what a Hoagie is, this might help you out. Hoagies also go by the names sub, grinder, hero, spuckie, po’ boy and wedge. Get it? So, really, the start of a Hoagie begins with the history of the sandwich:

During the 18th-century the Earl of Sandwich (Yeah, that’s real), had asked his staff to prepare a meal with meat filled between two ends of bread. While rumors persist to this day as to why he wanted these quick meals—potentially for his gambling addiction—his family still insists that he was just a busy man who needed a busy meal.

Of course, now, sandwiches are one of the most popular meals in the Western world. But, what’s going on with the hoagie and all these names for the same sandwich. It all comes down to location, location, location!

Po’ boys get their name from a streetcar strike in 1929, the Hero became popular through a popular New York newspaper food column in 1936, the Grinder is a New England term for the difficulty to bite through the chewy bread, and a submarine “sub”—well, duh!

So, what about the Hoagie then? How did the name come to be? Well, there are a couple stories:

1.     The Philadelphia Navy Yard was once called Hog Island and the workers called “hoggies.” The name is rumored to have come from the Italian workers who ate so many of these sandwiches that the hoagie eventually derived from the hoggie.

2.     The second possibility is that the hoagie was named for the Irish Navy yard workers who with a common last name of “Hogan” eventually led to hoagie.

3.     The third story, also from Hogan, was again the Navy yard. In this story a man named Hogan asked a buddy of his, who was always chowing down on these sandwiches, if his wife could make him an extra one each day—the name stuck.

4.     The fourth, and possibly the most reliable came from Al De Palma—Jazz musician turned sandwich shop owner. De Palma, in his early years, saw a couple buds eating a sub sandwich and made the comment, “You gotta be a hog to eat one of those.” Naturally, he opened a sub shop years later, then an entire chain of them, naming his biggest sandwiches “hoggies.”

So, there you have it! From hoggies to hoagies. On May 5th you could test out your Toastilla by making a Toastilla with popular hoagie fillings—steak, onion, peppers, cheese—mmm! But, you know what? We get it. It’s hard to compete with a hoagie remake on hoagie day. So, take a day off from your Toastilla—just one, only one—and go out to grab a delicious hoagie. You deserve it.